Thursday, November 17, 2016

Our study of Exodus has prompted us to consider that God
hardens some and draws others.(These are the doctrines of reprobation and election,
respectively.)We’ve seen these
ideas in Exodus 4:21-23, but in the NT we also find them in passages like
Romans 9:6-24.But how are we to
reconcile these things with other passages that seem to teach otherwise?Last time we began to look at 2 Peter
3:9, a text that some understand to be a challenge to the doctrine of election.
The verse reads:

The Lord is not slow
to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not
wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

We’ve already seen that the near context and the grammar of
the verse itself will not allow us to understand this as a statement against
the doctrine of election.The key
to understanding the scope of the verse is the word “you.”In this post, I’d like to consider the
question, “who is the ‘you’ in this verse, and what difference does it make?”

In short, Peter is writing to the community of professing believers, among whom he assumes
are some who are not yet truly saved.This can be demonstrated from the line of thought in the first chapter.

In Chapter 1, the apostle states that the divine power of
Christ has granted to us “all things that pertain to life and godliness,
through the knowledge of Him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by
which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that
through them you may become partakers of the divine nature…” (vv3-4).God has granted salvation (“life”) and
sanctification (“godliness”).Peter then exhorts the reader to “supplement your faith with virtue” and
other various qualities that serve as evidence of salvation.So God has granted salvation, and we
are to bear evidence of that salvation in the way that we live.

V10 is key: “Therefore, brothers be all the more diligent to
make your calling and election sure, for if you practice these qualities you
will never fall.”What does he
mean?He intends for them to find
evidence of their calling and election in the presence of these virtuous
qualities in their lives.This
tells us at least two things.First, their calling and election result in the virtuous qualities, for
it is “His divine power” granted to them that empowers them not only to be
saved, but also to exercise godliness.Without that divine power, there would be none of these virtuous
qualities.V11 says that it is
this exercise of godly virtue (which results from the divine power that saves
and sanctifies) that secures their entrance into the eternal kingdom of the
Lord.

So if we follow the chain backward, we see that an entrance
into the eternal kingdom is the result of the godly virtue that is the result
of their calling and election.Therefore, “be all the more diligent to make your calling and election
sure.”Election results in eternal
life.

Second, this kind of exhortation is always two-sided.(We find similar exhortations and
warnings elsewhere in the NT –1 Cor 10:1-12; 2 Cor 13:5; Heb 3:12, 4:1-11 –
these are all exhortations that essentially say, “Make sure you’re
saved!).On one side, it is an
exhortation to the saved to work to show the fruit of salvation.Why?Because that evidence is comforting to the soul.It is a way that we can be assured of
our salvation.On the other side,
it serves as a way to show those who think
they are saved that they really are not, and therefore should repent and
believe.Both sides serve the
elect – one by assuring the elect of their salvation, the other by drawing the
yet-unsaved elect to salvation.In this exhortation is the implicit
understanding that Peter is writing to a group in which there may be elect ones
who have not yet been saved.

This point alone is enough to indicate that 2 Pet 3:9 has a
particular audience in view.Since, Peter in 1:10 has already exhorted the readers to examine
themselves to see if their lives show evidence of calling and election, it
would make perfect sense that in 3:9 he would say, “The Lord…is patient toward you,
not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”1:10 and 3:9 address the same issue –
there are some elect who have not yet been converted.

So early in the letter, we have a clear reference to
election, which does not fit with a more universal understanding of 2 Pet
3:9.The word “election” is a great
difficulty for those who oppose the doctrine of election because it means “the
state of being chosen”.To
understand the verse to mean that God doesn’t choose particular persons to be
saved, but He desires equally that all people come to salvation, we have to
either ignore this reference to election or come up with some other explanation
for it.

There are two ways that opponents to election try to deal
with this.One is to take it to
refer to a corporate election.In other words, God chose the church
to be saved.He chose the body, rather than the individuals, so that any individual who
chooses to join the body may be considered elect by virtue of their membership
with the church.The individual
has the prerogative to join the body or not join the body.So where that word is found in
Scripture, they read it as a corporate election.

However, that understanding doesn’t make much sense in the
context of 2 Pet 1:10.Under this
view of election, God does not elect individuals – election is corporate.Therefore, Peter would have to be
saying here, “be all the more diligent to make the election of the church
sure.”How does that fit with the
exhortation that precedes it – the exhortation to show the fruit of
salvation?How does evidence of
individual salvation help to make the election of a corporate body sure?It doesn’t.

The other way that some try to deal with the concept of
election is to assert that election is based on God’s foreknowledge.In this
view, God from the foundation of the world saw all those who would choose to be
saved.He then did a “preemptive
choosing.”Essentially, God chose
to save those whom He foresaw would choose Him.They read that understanding of election into each use of
that word.

But it bears repeating that “election” means “the state of
having been chosen.”It does not
mean “the state of being recognized beforehand as one who will make a
particular choice.”It also does
not mean “the state of being chosen preemptively.”It simply means “chosen.”

Now, it’s possible for a context to color the meaning of a
word.But the burden is always on
the interpreter to find contextual markers that point to such a meaning.In this case, in order to understand
this as “election based upon foreknowledge” there must be something in the text
indicating the basis on which the choice is made.There are no such markers in this text.There is nothing that would lead a completely
objective reader to understand “election” to mean “election based on a foreknown
choice.”

So, I would hold that the material in 2 Peter 1, especially
the reference to election in 1:10, precludes a universal explanation of 2
Peter 3:9.Next time, we will look
at chapter 2, which makes a universal understanding of this verse even less
likely.

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